Enterprises can utilise their internal .Net skills to build multi-platform applications using Novell's open-source Mono platform, which should end up making it easier to get the most out of development teams.
On Thursday, Novell launched a test release of Mono, which is an open-source project that recreates Microsoft's .Net programming framework on Linux and Unix. Mono was designed to allow .Net programmers to build applications that work across Windows, Linux and Unix operating systems. The ability to span multiple operating systems with a single programming model is important, since many companies maintain Windows, Linux and Unix systems.
Steve Gaines, Novell's UK technical director, said Mono will allow an enterprise's developers to write code that will work on multiple platforms -- including Linux, Unix and Mac OS -- even though they only have Windows skills.
"Developers only familiar with the .Net programming environment, and using tools such as Visual Studio .Net, can, without specific knowledge of Linux or Unix or Mac OS or even Netware, write directly for those platforms," said Gaines.
Mark Quirk, head of technology at Microsoft UK's development and platform group, said that if Mono increases the number of skilled .Net developers in the marketplace, then Microsoft will be very happy. But he did say that Microsoft would hope that enterprises won't want to move away from its platform.
"Microsoft will clearly do our best to make sure our implementation is good enough so people will choose our platform," he said.
Mono's promise of increasing developers' productivity was welcomed by Ovum's senior analyst for software development strategy, Bola Rotibi, who said all development managers want to maximise their existing investments.
"If Mono delivers on its promise, it will allow .Net developers to write for other platforms. Anything that increases developers' productivity and capitalises on investments that enterprises have already made is a good thing," she said.
Talkback
i think mono is a blunder. i have been developing for 15 years, last 6 years with java, swithced from delphi and the main reason of the switch was because java let me wash my hands from ms almost altogether. i used java for solaris, palm, linux, win development and i don't see any reason why i should go back to murky waters of win development. i haven't downloaded mono, (or .net) i am not curious about it, and everytime i hear it is mentioned i just smile. :)
A Portable Application Environment:
The effort to establish a portable application environment took a big step forward with this release of the MONO beta. Once again the peasants with pitchforks are readying to storm the Bastille, to demand the Emperor release the prisoners. All prisoners.
The vast legacy of Win32 application users chained to the Windows platform. And the next generation of .NET framework application users being targeted for the great Longhorn roundup.
Microsoft pulled out all the stops to prevent Netscape and Java from establishing a cross platform environment developers could reliably write to. Chairman Bill risked the empire to make sure that these efforts to poach on the Windows platform, cannabolizing and pillaging the Win32 API franchise, would at best result in the uncertainties of developers having to hit a moving target. In this regard he succeeded brilliantly. The peasant rebellion was crushed. The franchise has to be protected at all costs. And it was.
What's interesting about the MONO project is that it doesn't try to carve out a beachhead in hostile territory, porting a new application environment ala Netscape and Java. Instead, they take an approach more similar to the WiNE Project.
Where WiNE simulates the Win32 API, MONO simulates the next generation Win32 franchise replacement, the .NET framework. A key difference being that while no one “writes” to WiNE, MONO was created as portable environment that could accommodate the porting of existing .NET applications, and, provide a reliable “target” developers could write to.
I think that this “dual” capability of being both a porting methodology (a simulated environment) and a full fledged application environment, truly separates MONO ambitions from Java expectations.
For any developer working within the muck of non inter operable heterogeneous systems, they need all the open source – open standards based tools and environment simulations they can find. They need access to open source frameworks, services, and core applications that can anchor the flow of inter op threads and channels.
Java is a wonderfully robust and well designed network application environment. So much so that it's platform specific clone, .NET, does next to nothing to push the envelope beyond standard Java functionality, expectations, and vision. What .NET does do, that Java cannot, is leverage the secret interfaces, class libraries, network services, communications and messaging protocols that maintain the monopolist's iron grip on the application marketplace. The hard truth is that Java was unable to crack Microsoft's hold on the Windows desktop.
The MONO simulation of those secret interfaces, protocols, and services is both open and portable. And because it's open source, given that enough developers write to the MONO environment, the simulation could very well become an open standards basis for network applications. And wherever open source technologies have a chance of becoming the basis of critical mass open standards, computational consumers and developers win in a big way. As Netscape proved, the mere possibility of cutting into the monopolists space, and releasing the grip, is enough to send the markets of speculation into a frenzy.
Many open source advocates say the MONO is a trap. That sooner or later Microsoft will kill every application written to MONO, or ported through MONO. Simply by making arbitrary changes to secret system calls, interfaces and services, Microsoft can choke of the competition and seize juicy opportunities others worked so hard to grow and ripen. After all, that's exactly how they manged to wipe out the entire Win32 API competitive landscape.
No one expects Chairman Bill to suddenly stop doing what has worked so well, legal of not. So, regarding MONO as a porting model for .NET applications, the skeptics have it right.
But that's not the whole story. While these tactics can and wi
I think its great, Im not particularly fond of some M$ stuff but its not a religion and Im not going to shun a technology just because M$ is involved somewhere. Ive been doing Delphi development for many years, Java is just not an option its too slow!!! Always has been and always will be, there are too many layers of abstraction, its object model is poorly implemented. The Delphi VCL has stood the test of time and guess what Anders Heijsberg who architected the VCL has also done the framework for .NET. Why have they both worked? Because he started with a blank sheet of paper and spend time *planning* the design, perhaps something Sun should have done so they wouldnt have to keep pushing out new releases every other week! Java sucks big time.